


Memory of the Water

by BassSlayer91



Category: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Silent Hill crossover, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BassSlayer91/pseuds/BassSlayer91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to retrieve some outsourced data on Weiss' virus, the Tsviets travel to Silent Hill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**70:40:11 remaining**

The pressure had been immense, surely on no one moreso than Weiss. Each Tsviet was at a computer, save for Shelke, who was fully immersed in her SND equipment. All of them were united by a common goal, this time one that didn't result in bloodshed. This was to help, rather than to hurt. They only had a precious two days, twenty-two hours, and forty-minutes after all. After a solid hour spent in cyber space, with all the Tsviets gathered around her, Shelke had to remove her heavy, SND helmet and report: "Nothing. There is no data that I can access that will help us."

Weiss had been watching the screen on his monitor intently until Shelke said those words. "Absolutely nothing?"

"Nothing." Shelke set aside the helmet and reached for the water she had laid on the ground earlier. Shelke didn't usually do that, since there was no shortage of people willing to open the bottle prematurely and fry the system. Weiss' oncoming death was apparently safer for Shelke than any rules the Restrictors had put in place. "I am still waiting for our outsourced systems' data, but I doubt that there will be anything important inside those reports."

"Outsourced data," Rosso scoffed, examining the points of her gauntlets. Her expression gave one the impression that Rosso didn't particularly care for the data, and perhaps she didn't. Rosso cared about results, about the interpretation of Shelke's data, usually because it resulted in orders. Orders usually meant bloodshed, which Rosso could always get behind. The process of waiting for the call bored her usually, yet this was different. These results would decide the outcome of Weiss' life.

A squat machine stirred to life in the corner of the room and began spitting out paper. With Shelke being too exhausted to do anything but nurse her water bottle, Argent crossed the room and retrieved the reports. With each flipped page, the furrows in Argent's frown deepened. By the time she reached the bottom of the stack, Argent had composed her face into something more neutral. "It's as Shelke predicted. There is nothing."

"You're kidding." Nero got up from his terminal, retrieved the papers from Argent and began sifting through them himself. He read all the reports twice before handing them over to Weiss with a heavy sigh. Weiss took it in the laborious manner he would take a large bag of bricks.

"This can't be everything," he said. "We have more laboratories than this."

"I will make certain that all of the labs sent reports." Instead of taking the Net Dive for another run, Shelke sat at a regular terminal. She slumped over the keys slightly, but remained upright. Soon, there was nothing but furious typing. Shelke read the names of places that had reported out loud. They were places that no one could glean anything from, least of all the three who had been born in DeepGround. For example Costa De Sol represented sunny beaches Argent and Azul, who had been there once each. For Shelke, it brought up vague memories from something that might have been a dream. Weiss, Nero, and Rosso only knew that there were beaches there from reading about it.

"That's all of our la—" Shelke cut herself off, staring in puzzlement at one city that had popped up on the list. It was significant for two reasons. One was that Shelke had never heard of a place called Silent Hill. Another was that it was the one city had not given Shelke any kind of data regarding Weiss' condition. The puzzling thing was that Shelke had never seen the name in any of her previous searches. To withhold the information on the basis that it was suspect could be considered treason. "I believe I have located something of interest. One location has not reported back to us, due to what appears to be a faulty connection."

"Which one?"

"Silent Hill."

There was a sudden flurry of keystrokes as everyone began running through databases, searching for all the information they could ever find about Silent Hill. As they found information, they reported verbally, in fragments: Scarcely a city, more akin to a town; an old resort town; near a lake, Toluca Lake; several fires, but a quaint place in the pictures. There were two hospitals, a penitentiary, and an asylum that could possibly have Weiss' data. Alchemilla hospital didn't have a computer system, and the penitentiary would not do scientific research. It was down to Brookhaven Hospital or Cedar Grove Sanitarium.

After some silence, Nero was the only one with the mettle to ask, "Weiss?"

"We don't have any other options." Weiss stood and leaned against one of the terminals. "One of those places has our data, and it's just a matter of our retrieving it. We can repair their system and retrieve the data from here. If not, there should be hard copies of the data laying around and we can take that, just to be certain. We leave in one hour. Prepare accordingly."

"Hail Weiss," Azul murmured, more in reverence than anything else. He left the room, presumably to secure transportation for the journey.

"Hail Weiss," Nero, Argent, and Rosso echoed. Shelke continued to nurse her water before responding with her call. One by one, the Tsviets left the room, eventually leaving Shelke to herself, still sipping on water. On the screen that Rosso had been reading from, the phrase Silent Hill in black text on the white screen stuck out to Shelke, the only dark entity in a world of light. Shelke, though not a believer in omens (how could she be after DeepGround?), couldn't help but darkly reflect that the trip to Silent Hill might be the last thing they ever did.

* * *

**69:40:43 remaining**

Their plan was a simple one. Commandeer a helicopter and fly out to Silent Hill, a trip that would take easily twelve hours. Shelke insisted that the trip would take maybe nine with her modifications to the vehicle. She had also wired it to auto-pilot to their destination before promptly passing out in the smallest corner of the cockpit. Since their trip did not require a window, the helicopter did not have one. There was no need for it, and Rosso mourned the lack. She was determined to see the sky, keeping that goal glowing on the horizon of her mission. Azul was the next to trudge in, carrying an ammunition box with him. He sat across from Rosso, diagonal from Shelke, and stared into the blank space above Rosso's head. He did not move. The last three entered finally, each taking seats that their comrades had left. Everyone's weapons made small, clacking noises against the helicopter's interior, as well as the blades of others.

"Rest up," Weiss advised, putting a parachute on as a safety precaution. Everyone else followed his example, as was typical. "I understand that the past few days have been…" He struggled for the word, but only for a moment. The moment it took to realize that "overwhelming" was an insult to their skills and "stressful" didn't exist. "Difficult," he finished. "We have ten hours. Make the most of them."

One by one, they dropped off to sleep. They were super-soldiers, perfection in motion. They were killing machines, either born and bred or found and made, but they were still living weapons. They were also humans.

* * *

**59:58:07 remaining**

Weiss had only meant to sleep for maybe five hours, but there had been something exhausting him into sleeping double that time. Ever since the final Restrictor's death, there had been something peculiar. He had assumed it was the virus, making him feel as though he shouldered an enormous burden, but there was little data to suggest any psychosomatic symptoms came with the disease that would kill him in less than three days.

The thing that woke Weiss up was noise. The control panel had begun furiously beeping. It was an indication of losing altitude. Nero was faster than Weiss was, scrambling to the door and flinging it open. He grabbed onto the top rim of the door, prompting Weiss to run over and secure him as a spotter. With Weiss carefully holding onto his waist, Nero gingerly raised his head over the roof to see the propellers. Weiss guided Nero's body back into the security of the room. His brother's face was spattered with blood, sending Weiss' pulse sky-rocketing. Thankfully, Nero's face didn't show any pain, only grimness. The blood wasn't his.

"There's something caught in the blades," he reported. "We need to jump."

Shelke's stomach nearly fell out of her at the word "jump." One of the few benefits of DeepGround had been that all heights were either simulated by computers or man-made. Shelke rarely had to deal with them herself, since she almost never went on field missions in the first place. Jumping out of a helicopter into unknown territory was neither a simulation nor a man-made test that others had passed before her. This was real, more real than anything. The fog that rose and consumed them was real, blocking the ground, sky, and horizon from view. Dread built up into Shelke's body as she watched Argent, Azul, and Rosso jump out into the void. She was next, followed by Nero and Weiss.

"Jump!" Nero hissed.

Shelke hesitated, edging backwards. "I—"

The fog came closer than Shelke had ever wanted as she was thrust forward into it. Suddenly, she was falling through the whiteness. Deepground had beaten the instinct to cry out, but Shelke could still feel a scream building in her, crawling sickly up through her throat and clawing its way between her lips.


	2. Chapter 2

**59:52:44 remaining**

The team had been split. In Azul's opinion, this was the exact reason that they should have brought more men. His ideal team would have been the five Tsviets, Argent (who counted in her own way), and maybe the top six candidates for becoming a Tsviet. Azul snorted derisively. There probably weren't even six candidates that would satisfy conditions. Weiss had shot down the idea of taking more troops in, saying that maximum discretion was a large priority. The compound would scarcely know that they were gone, or even that power had so recently changed hands. One of Argent's pre-mission tasks had been queuing up enough missions to last for two weeks, and telling all instructors that all crises would be a "test of their competence." The split in the group secretly pleased Azul. He was one to divide and conquer, but Weiss wanted to join together some of the best forces for a mission that added up to restarting an internet connection. Pitiful, but Azul would never question Weiss' commands.

The other thing that pleased Azul about the situation was that Shelke was not present any longer. While Rosso was contemptuous of the girl and Nero was simply indifferent, Azul _loathed_ her. To crush her weak, pitiful form between his fingers would be a pleasure. He was made to abstain from such a pleasure by Weiss' presence, Argent's near-maternal care (Azul had to quell a laugh at that. Maternity! In DeepGround!), and that shield materia that Shelke hid behind so well.

"Why haven't they met up with us?" Argent murmured, studying the map intently.

"Lost in the fog, perhaps?"

"Nero's sense of direction is better than that." Argent traced the roads with her index finger. "He cleared directional training faster than any other soldier. He holds the record."

"Holding a training record means nothing in a field mission."

Argent didn't respond, only traced her finger across the lake on the map. With the modifications Shelke had made to the helicopter, it was possibly for the helicopter to cross the lake in very little time. There was an even chance that the others were already on the other side of the lake, in South Silent Hill.

The PHS buzzed against Argent's hip. She withdrew it and checked the message. From Weiss: "Proceed to CGS. We will investigate BHH. Plan to meet at the intersection of W. Sandford st. and Nathan ave. in 36 hours."

Argent held the PHS out to Rosso and Azul. "Weiss' orders. Investigate Cedar Grove Sanitarium and report to an intersection on the west side of Silent Hill in 36 hours."

"Simple." Azul took the map from Argent, neither fiercely, nor gently. He pointed a finger ahead of them. "The helicopter going to Brookhaven went that way. Our destination is therefore…" Taking a moment to orient himself properly, Azul pointed somewhere to Argent's right. "This way."

* * *

**59:43:22 remaining**

"Lost," Weiss muttered, not for the first time since landing. He was clearing a path with his swords, boots, and words. He could have kicked himself for giving Argent the only real map. The text had barely sent, and his PHS was simply refusing to show the map he had downloaded back in DeepGround. He was hiking through the mist on Nero's intuition and his own faith in his brother's navigational abilities. Nero and Shelke followed him through the long weeds, his soldiers through opaque nothingness. "Lost," he said. His words were thick with snarls that would be detrimental to the mission if released. "Lost in the five seconds you hesitated."

Facts were the only things that mattered in DeepGround and the fact that Weiss' statement was unbiased was what made it more difficult to hear. Yes, Shelke's hesitation had been the reason they were stranded in _terra incognita._ Even worse was the fact that it was no one else's fault. Even so, the words that Weiss left to the mist were much more cutting; Weak-willed child; Miserable failure. Her gaze was downcast, focused on the faint glow of mako in the tips of her shoes. She watched the glow get swallowed by the dried weeds and earth. Each admonishment that Weiss didn't say pushed Shelke to create new ones, longer ones, a new rebuke with each swing of the sword. Couldn't save yourself if you had to. Lay down and die.

"Lost."

"I… I apologize for…"

"Silence."

Shelke snapped her mouth shut. Apologies would not get them to their target destination, and they all knew it. Nero looked back to her. He didn't seem resentful or even properly angry. Anger by proxy. Upset because Weiss was upset. That was rare, as Nero was always constraining some kind of rage behind his calm voice and deadened eyes. The glow of his red eyes in this town was muted, making him seem less angry. Almost as though he had released it in some other manner, as though the trip had stripped him of his anger.

They found a road after a few more minutes of misty nothing. Weiss climbed over the guardrail and looked to Nero. "Which way?"

Nero looked between his left and right. Each side held nothing but mist, so it was difficult for Shelke to see exactly was Nero was basing his judgment on. It might have even been a guess when Nero pointed to the right. "This way."

Having found a path, Weiss had stopped talking about how lost they were. The mist did not. The only sounds on the roads were the sounds of their boots. Just because they had found a road didn't mean that they knew for certain what was at the end of it. The tension of not knowing was eating Shelke alive.

* * *

**59:29:11 remaining**

The sanitarium was a dark place, Rosso approved of that. What she didn't approve of was the fact that, even though she had been outside, she had not seen the sky properly. Only fog for miles and miles, up further than she could have ever imagined. That desolate blankness was not the sky though, and Rosso disregarded it. It wasn't the sky, in her opinion. It was even less real than the images on the projector screens in DeepGround.

The asylum felt like a womb. It was warm, compared to the chill outside and the frigidity of DeepGround corridors. The air inside was heavy with heat. Rosso had never experience such stillness, even in the presence of corpses. It was palpable. She sauntered along behind Azul and Argent. Weiss was important, but Rosso wanted to savor being above ground and refused to be rushed through the dark, warm silence.

"Conveniently placed," Argent murmured. She and Azul were standing over a map that had been carefully laid across a coffee table. "What are the chances that the obstruction to the signal was what a web is to a fly's life?"

"A trap," Azul rumbled. "This was planned."

"So what? We can cut them down." Rosso ran her finger along her blade. "We are Tsviets. We are inhuman. They are nothing."

Argent picked up the map. "Three floors. Azul, what do you make of splitting up?"

He was silent for a moment. "It could be wise, if Rosso's estimation of our strength is correct. Each to a floor."

Argent handed one page of the map to Azul and one to Rosso. Azul checked their location versus his current one and turned to find the staircase. Rosso examined the page that she had been given. First floor.

To her left, there was a hiss of air and Argent's shoulders dropped. Rosso spoke to the other woman easily. "Troubles?"

"No. None at all."

"Good. It wouldn't do to have reservations at this stage."

"I agree." Rosso could have sworn that she saw the fabric across Argent's pale throat rise and fall. Rosso's teeth glimmered as her heels clacked against the floor. Perhaps they weren't precisely inhuman.

* * *

**58:28:33 remaining**

After they had found the road, finding the hospital was easy. In a matter of an hour, the bland, imposing building loomed over them. Weiss strode up to the building and swung the double-doors open. Nero, lurking close behind his brother, watched as an inch of dust went fluttering into the surrounding darkness.

"Ugh…" Weiss stepped across the threshold. Nero followed, noting the lack of friction that residual dust left behind. Combat would need to be handled with that as a consideration. "This area has been abandoned for a while. Maybe a year or two."

"A while? I wouldn't be surprised if the true reason we lack data is due to a lack of electricity." Nero flicked a switch on the wall up and down to demonstrate his point. "Condemnation would be a suitable fate. Shelke, you're certain that this is the proper location?"

"Yes. Brookhaven hospital." Shelke closed the door behind them, plunging them into darkness. The only light in the hallway was the dim, blue glow of their uniforms. Weiss activated a fire materia and the area around them was illuminated in a warm, amber glow. Tiny motes of dust burst into flame, but the stillness was still unnerving. Shelke could see by the light of Weiss' materia. Nero couldn't use one, but he saw well enough in the dark.

Shelke stepped up to a bulletin board. A map was haphazardly tacked to the upper-left corner. "Very convenient."

Weiss looked. Nodded. "Nero."

As soon as Nero nodded back, Weiss walked up and ripped the map from the board. Nero readied his pistols at the sound of ripping paper. No ambush. No surprises. Not even an accompanying noise. The three stood frozen for a few moments more. Nero lowered his guns and Shelke took her hand off the materia she had been fingering.

"A map, then?"

"Yeah… Five floors total, if you count the accessible roof and basement as floors."

"Shall we part ways?"

"Yes. Shelke, investigate the second floor. I will take the basement and first floor. Nero, take the third floor and roof. Are we all clear on what we're looking for?"

The response came in stereo. "Yes, Weiss."

Weiss carefully tore the scrap of paper containing all of the second floor off and handed it to Shelke. He gave Nero the rest. They dispersed like mist, finally back on target.


	3. Chapter 3

**58:27:43 remaining**

The basement of Brookhaven Hospital was dimly lit, only by emergency lights that were either sparse or broken on the first floor. It felt like more traps on the part of some entity unknown to him. At least that's how Weiss saw it. The maps couldn't have been a coincidence. There was clearly more to this situation. Maybe some kind of back-up plan for the Restrictors. In addition to the virus, have one more line of defense guarding the antidote. It was cunning, the sort of back-up plan that DeepGround utilized frequently enough. He wouldn't be surprised if something lurched out of the darkness and gutted him. Weiss kept a cautious left hand over one of his swords while he checked through the basement.

The electrical control room was a tiny room, housing a large generator that appeared to be off. That was odd. Would the enemy not benefit from electricity as well? Advanced DeepGround technology indeed, Weiss thought as he flicked on the control panel. The generator whirred to life. That would help to guide Shelke, anyway. Nero was fine in the darkness.

As Weiss left the electrical room, he noticed that the lights had turned on. While that was probably not the best situation for the enemy, he was confident that he could cut them down. With the help of the lights, Weiss took note of the creeping, black mold, the missing tiles in the walls, and the holes. Tiny bullet-holes, all uniform, and scarcely larger than his finger. Perhaps someone had tried to make an escape. As Weiss finished this thought, he came across a smear of blood that trailed from around the corner to his feet. He laughed, a small one that didn't carry out into the stairway. Perhaps someone hadn't made it.

Weiss tried the pump room and storage room and discovered that they were locked. Or at least that the locks were broken. Weiss could turn the handle well enough, but the door didn't budge. Interesting. Cutting the lock would be rather useless, but shooting it might work. Weiss stepped to the other side of the hallway and fired a bullet into the door of the pump room. He went to open the door, only to find that it still would not open for him. Perplexing, now.

The boiler room was properly locked, with no key in sight. No turning the door-knob here. It would seem that Weiss' search of the basement had been a failed one. That was fine. Weiss didn't really think someone would keep important information in a boiler room, but it never hurt to check.

Wonder of wonders, the storage room actually did open for him. There were items in the cob-web ridden room, ranging everywhere from practical to completely useless. Among the practical items was a key. It made Weiss think again of traps. Why keep an important key on a store shelf? So that no one will find it, except someone who was actually looking. Thinking that he had solved his boiler room problem, Weiss took the key and turned it over to check the key-tag. This was for the Doctor's Lounge on the first floor. More of a setback, than anything, really. Weiss pocketed the key and headed up over the stairs.

His back was turned to the walls when the blood began to drip out of the bullet-holes on the wall, like a fresh wound.

* * *

**58:26:03 remaining**

As soon as Rosso was completely alone, she punched a wall and let a small noise of anger burst out of her throat. It wasn't the sky, or even the fact that they were on a trivial errand of a mission, but it was her apparent teammates. Azul was fine. Rosso could live with Azul because Azul understood her operation, at least to some degree. He would never be able to predict her, in the same way that a scientist could never predict a bouncing ball beyond its first two impacts. They knew about how it functioned, but never precisely. Azul was the same with Rosso, knowing that she would snap eventually, but never what would set her off.

Rosso had learned to live with her own instability. Her emotions were volatile and she had come to accept it. She was complacent when she was stable, but could slip just as easily into a rage and find herself justified in either state. Rosso didn't understand her madness, didn't pretend to understand it like the Researchers did, but she was content to live in its whirlwind. Rosso enjoyed it, enjoyed the feeling of a lack of control, enjoyed the feeling of a human being's pulse falling in frequency and intensity, and she enjoyed the way that blood congealed underneath her gauntlets' nails until it was solid grit. She enjoyed it.

Argent was something that set Rosso off. Argent's methods, Argent's level-headed behavior, Argent's always being right and polite and so restrained! Rosso stormed off to check doors for her fool errand, still thinking about all the ways she wanted Argent dead. Rosso wanted to see Argent unrestrained and screaming, just once. Wishful thinking, Rosso thought, opening a door at random. Argent was excitable as an iron bar.

Rosso opened another door. Nothing was inside, and that was only slightly disappointing. As Rosso was about to close it and try another, she saw a sheet of paper sitting on the desk. Check everything, she supposed, so that no one could say that she had walked directly past the cure. It would be a failure on her part and the only thing Rosso hated more than other people was other people saying she was in the wrong somehow.

_ Staff Memo:  _

_A reminder that all staff members should pay attention to where they have placed their keys. They must not fall into patients' hands._

Underneath, Rosso read the handwritten:

_Girl in A6 has been sewing them into her clothes. Left all of them in the laundry room, behind the detergent. – Nancy_

Thank you for the tip, Nancy, Rosso thought to herself as she left the room and began searching for the laundry room. It wasn't far, only a hallway away. Rosso opened the laundry room's door. Nothing of importance, save for the box of detergent on a shelf on the far wall. Sure enough, there was a small, plastic bin behind the detergent. There was only a single key, marked "Orderly."

As Rosso pocketed it, the paint on the door began to crack and peel.

* * *

**58:25:08 remaining**

As Nero ascended the stairs, he was solely focused on his mission and its outcome. He didn't care at all about research and experimental results. In fact, after what they had done to him, Nero had come to dislike experiments. He didn't care about Shelke's data, save for the fact that the information could save Weiss. Saving Weiss was worth anything. Nero would let masked Researchers stab a million needles into his back, inject as much poison as they would like into his blood, and he would endure it. As long as Weiss would be unharmed. Such sentiments were kind thoughts, but unrealistic, impractical, and not helpful. Nero could be helpful by finding those results.

Inwardly, as he opened the door to the hospital's roof, he scoffed. Nero was a Tsviet. He always got results.

The roof was barren, save for a small structure to his left. He checked it first and, according to his map, it was the elevator's control room. He opened it up. Nothing worth noting, he decided. Everything appeared operational, with even lights blinking. Convenient, he thought. Either Weiss had restored the power or the hospital was not as abandoned as he had surmised. The only question was whether they were anticipated or not. Even if they were anticipated, Nero didn't think opposition would hinder them.

The third floor was in a similar state to the first floor. Bland and covered with mold. He wrinkled his nose at the state of the place. Contagions were not commonplace in DeepGround. He consulted his map. The third floor seemed to be a place reserved for the truly insane. The equivalent of a psychiatric ward, he supposed. He went around, opening doors and checking them. The rooms marked "Day Room" and "Store Room" were broken somehow, but the "Special Treatement" room was merely locked.

Nero also made a point of checking the elevator. During one of his field tests, Nero had turned off the lights in a main elevator and hid in the shadows until the recruits he was being tested against entered the elevator. He slaughtered each of the small groups when the doors closed, just to trim the numbers down. It was a clever tactic, in his opinion. He would not put it past the current opponents. He doubted very much that the enemy could use the same tactics that he did, though. Still, the elevator was an excellent hiding place and ambush point.

The last area to check was a long line of fourteen rooms, tiny cubicles that Nero highly suspected could only contain a bed and little else. Rooms S1, S2, and S3 were all locked. Room S4 contained a bed, as Nero had thought it would, along with a nightstand and a sheet of paper taped up to the wall. "I DON'T WANT ANYMORE SHOTS" was written in grey crayon in a child's scrawl. Nero frowned at the paper, but pocketed the sheet anyway.

Room S5 was also open to him, though it contained nothing at all. Room S6 and S7 were locked. Room S8 was a peculiarity; It contained a box on the bed. Nothing to indicate the contents of the box though. Curious. Nero left it alone, examining the other rooms, in what was quickly becoming a tedious process. Thankfully, he only had another six to go through. Nero thought it was unlikely that classified data would be hidden in a patient's room, but his orders were to search.

Room S9 was empty and S10 was locked. Room S11 contained still another letter, from a different child apparently. "Billy has a monster in him. The Docktors can make it go away. I fownd their seecrit recipe and put it in my trezure chest. Theyll never find my key." Secret recipe, eh? Nero kept the note, putting it alongside the paper about the shots.

The last three rooms were locked. Nero stared blankly at the notes. He was following advice from children, it seemed. As he turned to get to the last few rooms, on the other side of the hallway (a bathroom, showering room, and examination room), Nero didn't see the veins of red suffocating the blank, white-ish paint.

* * *

**58:26:03 remaining**

Honor and duty went hand-in-hand when Argent lived in Wutai. She had a duty to honor her village by serving as a swordswoman in the resistance movements against ShinRa. Likewise, she honored her village by doing her duty, bringing victory to Wutai alongside her countrymen. The synchronization of work and emotion was easy for her to reconcile when she was home. She would not be dishonored for shedding enemy blood because they would dare to destroy her home. Argent was able to live as a swordswoman and the daughter of a blacksmith. Her existence was peaceful.

Later, her philosophy was overdue for a solid revision in the opinion of the ShinRa operatives that took her away to serve in their military. Duty to the company came before everything else in ShinRa, honor be damned. The mission at hand came before other peoples' lives, Argent's own life, and everything else behind that. When she entered the ShinRa military, they had beaten that into her head. Literally, when she came to DeepGround. She could crawl back to the DeepGround, only when the mission was done. The rate at which Argent climbed the stairs was quick, but the entire mission had an unidentifiable impossibility to it and she felt as though this would be a crawl mission.

Truly, Argent thought as she shoved the door to the second floor open, the mission was crawling. First, they had been separated. Then they had made their way to the asylum, only for it to be conveniently open and potentially an enemy base. Lastly, Rosso was acting like a fast-moving thunderhead on the horizon. Azul was doing nothing about her behavior. In fact, Azul seemed to be encouraging Rosso in some ways, allowing her to go off on her own. Azul outranked Argent on a technicality, but Argent possessed seniority over him. She respected Azul as a fellow Tsviet, but Argent was not willing to let Azul's combative behavior sabotage the mission.

It made sense for the files to be in one of four locations on the second floor: The staff office, the library, the administration office, or the archives. Argent made these rooms a priority. The staff office was locked. Argent entered the second floor's lobby, and then the library. That was open and she entered the room. It was dusty, but well-organized. Argent had no idea of what to look for. A computer would be the obvious thing, but she was uncertain if the power was even working. She turned her attention to the books. Nearly all of them were medical journals, not published by the asylum. No, it made sense that she would want to try looking through the publications of the asylum. Perhaps not even those, but the hard-copy files in the filing cabinets towards the back of the room.

Argent crossed the room, opened one of the filing cabinets, withdrew a stack of files, and began to painstakingly read them. As she read, the room began to deteriorate in the most horrible ways.

* * *

**58:26:02 remaining**

Shelke didn't feel very much. Physically, she had been beaten so many times that feeling was no longer a deciding factor in whether or not she fought. Mentally, a Net Dive was the only thing that could exhaust her and that was an obligation that she did not consider to be painful, only dangerous. Lastly, Shelke felt as though she no longer possessed emotions some days. There was nothing in DeepGround to be happy about since she did not get swept up into fights, kills, or morbidity the way her fellow Tsviets did. Negative reactions, like crying and defiance, had been beaten out of her long ago. Shelke passed long stretches in hazes of neutrality, not caring about anything except the tasks that were being put in front of her. The mission to Silent Hill was the first time Shelke had felt anything other than apathy in weeks. First, she had felt regret, guilt, and inferiority when her fears altered the mission's path. Next, she was feeling irritated by her commanders' behaviors and orders.

Shelke openly acknowledged that she was not in a position to criticize the mission given to her, but she felt as though she was being belittled by Weiss and Nero. She was being given an order that was equivalent to "Go play and don't break anything." It was annoying, the way mosquitoes had been annoying in childhood. The sense that they simply wanted her out of the way was grating.

The second floor was bare and abandoned, just like the first floor had been. Similar layout, as well. Shelke followed the hallway until she found a group of doors and began trying them. The first door that opened led her to what looked like a laundry room, or at least a linen closet. The room contained six industrial-sized hampers, each filled with what looked like patient gowns. Shelke had only needed to wear a patient gown once in her life, when she had an ear infection and needed to be taken to the hospital as a child. The gowns in Banora had been a soft blue color, but these were a sickly shade of green.

Something caught Shelke's eye as she crossed the room to examine the shelves of the room. A shining, silver key was nestled into one of the hampers. As though someone knew that Shelke would be looking for something and had laid the key out for her as a sign. Shelke looked at the key distrustfully. On one hand, it could be necessary. On the other hand, it could be a trap. Shelke removed one of her sabers and activated it. Shelke jabbed the canvas of the hamper through, leaving a singed hole. The clothing shifted, but there was no indication that a person lay waiting in the hamper for her. Shelke repeated the process on the other five hampers, each receiving a quick stab and a burnt hole roughly the size of Shelke's palm. The room was safe, or at least uninhabited. Shelke removed the key from the hamper, turning the cold metal over in her hand. It had a tag on it, marked with the word "Pool."

A dilemma, then. On one hand, Shelke's only orders were to investigate the second floor. In a way, she was not cleared to investigate the first floor, which was Weiss' territory. On the other hand, Shelke was not about to allow them to accuse her of not following clues through. Shelke would go to the pool and, if Weiss found her on the first floor, she would explain the situation. Weiss was reasonable, moreso than Rosso or Restrictors were. He would understand her.

As Shelke left the room, her sneakers made an unpleasant squelching sound as they made contact with a thick layer of human flesh that was coating the floor of the hospital hallways.

* * *

**58:25:16 remaining**

The only person Azul could depend on for actual results was himself. He didn't distrust Weiss' orders or judgment calls, but orders and judgments were not results. Weiss would not be brought to life on his own orders and judgments. He would also not be helped by Nero's fervor, Argent's dedication, or Shelke's approach. He needed results and Azul felt that he was the best man for those. Results were easy to get for him.

As Azul descended the stairs, entering the basement of the asylum, something odd began to happen to the walls. The paint began peeling and Azul laid a hand on the cannon he had holstered on his waist. He had heard about using heat in a weaponized manner and that seemed to be the tactic. Yet Azul perceived no temperature change, only the sounds of paint chips skittering to the floor. Something was shifting at the bottom of the staircase. Azul's heart leapt up and his lips curled into a grin. A fight.

Fights were the only enjoyment Azul truly got out of life. They were challenges for the sake of challenges, but they were also a way to determine superiority. Intelligence was measured too many ways for Azul to base status on that. Combat was clear-cut in the same way mathematics tended to be. There was either a winner or a loser. A draw was a fight that hadn't been completed yet.

Azul approached the bottom of the stairs much more rapidly than he would have otherwise. At the bottom of the stairs was… Something. It was not human, Azul was certain of that much. At the same time, it was not a monster he was familiar with. Even more interesting, then. Squinting through the darkness, Azul began to realize that this was not the sort of monster one generally found on The Planet. For one thing, it was large and bloated, but still mobile. For another, it was pale in the same way Rosso was pale. It was a pallor only associated with those who had never seen sunlight and never would. The creature's veins stood out against its skin, each about the thickness of a drinking straw. It made feverish sucking noises, as though feasting on a kill. Very interesting.

As the bloated creature fed, Azul made no attempt to disguise his presence and walked directly up to it. He had hoped that it would stop its meal and fight. Instead, it continued eating. Azul did not exist, as far as the monster was concerned. Azul brought one of his feet down on it, squashing it like a fat spider. It popped grotesquely, revealing that it was, in fact, pregnant. The fetus was underdeveloped, but a perfect clone of its horrid mother. Azul crushed that, too. Just to be safe.

Clearly, they had done experimental research at this asylum. Monsters like this didn't exist in DeepGround. The equipment had yet to be seen, but Azul surmised that it was all located in the basement somewhere. Kicking a wall to dislodge the pieces of monster stuck in his boots, Azul pressed on. He was not afraid of what this asylum would dare to throw at him.


	4. Chapter 4

**???????? remaining**

As Weiss ascended the stairs to the first floor, he decided that he was getting bored of the search. It was necessary if he wanted to live, but the tedium of searching was frustrating. He could feel himself being hauled around by the nose and, like a rat in a maze, he felt his mind twisting into a tiny coil of rebellion against the entity running the show. He wanted results, or at least a clearer pictures of where he was to go.

Just go to the next floor, he thought, already on the first floor’s landing.

As he opened the door to the first floor, the first thing Weiss processed was rust. Thick streaks had covered the surface of what had been clean hospital. Weiss stepped forward and tracked one finger through the gore on the ground. While he found that the reddish substance did contain a certain amount of grit, he discovered that he had mistaken the long swipes of rust for drying blood. That wasn’t cause for alarm by itself—Weiss had been the cause of more drying blood than most people—but the presence of the blood implied two things. One was that whatever had done this had been quick, no more than five minutes. The other was that something had snuck under Weiss’ radar.

“Impossible,” he muttered, wiping as much blood off his fingers as he could.

There was a shuffling noise from behind the corner ahead of him. Weiss wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword and pressed his back against the wall. His heart began to beat like he was swimming endless laps through a quicksand-filled pool. This was familiar, anticipation of the fight. Pleasant adrenaline, like waking up after a good sleep. Slowly, Weiss peered around the corner.

Just as quickly, he pulled his head back. Large claws. A pointed skull sticking out of the wall. It hadn’t seen him, or it would have given chase.

To look. To not look. To confront. To walk away.

Weiss poked his head around for another, longer look. The creature’s pointed head was directed at Weiss and the sounds it made were those made by a cat trapped in a metal box. Weiss ventured closer, drawing a sword out of its sheath. It reached a clawed hand forward and took a swipe. Weiss moved to block the sharp appendage, only for it to slice through the sword.

“Wh—”

Weiss jumped back to avoid the next swipe. He took the key from his pocket and jabbed it into the lock. Ka-tink. Didn’t enter. “Dammit.” Ka-tink. Ka-tink. The creature took two more swipes, pressing Weiss further back against the door and hastening Weiss’ frantic movements. Finally, the key went into the lock, the door swung open, and Weiss went tumbling backwards into the Doctor’s Lounge. Weiss frantically kicked the door shut.

The Doctor’s Lounge was a dark, grey place with a tiny table near the edge of the room. Weiss inhaled hard and exhaled. He looked at the hilt of the sword in his hand, marked with the sign “Heaven,” with only a finger’s-length of blade and barrel left. Weiss sighed heavily. The sword had been one of the last things that came to him as an emperor of DeepGround. He still had its twin, along with another set of similar blades still tucked away in DeepGround, but the set was important. Weiss sat up slowly, still staring at the rough cuts along the edge of his blade. It wasn’t possible that these monsters were stronger than he was. But this one, this mewling, pathetic creature had sliced through his sword as though the claws were bladed themselves.

Weiss rose from the floor and dropped what remained of Heaven from his grasp. It was time to get down to business.

* * *

**-99,454,698:84,686,153,158:552 remaining**

After making her way through a third or so of the files, Argent resurfaced and checked her phone to see how much time she had. A read-out of several thousand hours blinked back at her and refused to move. Clearly, there was some kind of glitch. Some sort of accident with her phone. She shook it gently once. Twice. It was silent, but still showed an impossible amount of time left on the countdown. Only after Argent put away her phone did she notice the drastic changes in her surroundings.

The paint was peeling off of the walls, revealing rusty gratings rather than drywall. The lamps that had been lighting the room effectively had broken. Argent’s frantic search for knowledge had only been lit by a single, dusty fluorescent lamp above her head. The books and files had yellowed dramatically, and gained several layers of dust, on top of what it had already accumulated.

Argent examined her own person. She was fine, no dust whatsoever.

Well, of course not, she thought. It was wholly impossible for her to have been sitting there for the years it would take for her to accumulate the amount of dust that bedecked the books on the shelves. Then again, the dust couldn’t have just appeared there, without covering her as well. It was a peculiar trick.

Argent got up from the chair, stretching her spine out. While she hadn’t been there for as long as the phone seemed to think, she had been sitting for quite a while. Technically, her work with the files wasn’t complete, but the glitch was something that she couldn’t ignore. She needed to manage her time effectively. Leaving the room, she decided that the slightly-difficult Azul would be a better source of information than the volatile Rosso.

When she emerged into the hallway, she saw that it wasn’t merely the library that had aged. The hallway’s walls were also peeling away. Where a fancy light fixture had hung in the middle of the room, there was now a cage stuck partway through the ceiling, the creature inside hissing away. Argent squinted up at it, then thought better of having to look.

There was a cacophonous, shrieking laughter that made Argent start and prompted a screech from the cage.

On her level, there was some shuffling and Argent readied her sword. She hadn’t participated in actual combat for years, but she was ready. There were metal clanking sounds, as though someone with steel shoes was walking on the grating. As the noise drew closer, nothing came. Argent’s heart raced, her pulse hammering away. The sound was finally upon her when it abruptly stopped.

The cage-creature hissed.

There was a sharp pain through Argent’s leg and she pulled back, feeling part of her armor go with her. A blade was sticking out of the ground where she had been, and it retracted slowly. Whatever lurked under the grating made a low noise of pain before the clanking started up again. Argent looked closer at the floor. The creature had elongated heels and a painful hook on its toes that kept it from falling off the bottom floor’s ceiling. Argent didn’t care to see where it kept the blade. She fled from off the grating, finding solid floor near the door.

Monsters, then.

Argent was trained to fight, certainly. Before she lost her eye, she had been a fearsome opponent on the battlefield, capable of taking down a variety of opponents. In DeepGround, after losing her eye to a Restrictor’s blade, she passed that knowledge on to others. She had even had some experience with monsters, but only the wild beasts that prowled around Wutai’s borders. Generations had passed on knowledge of monsters, and every creature in DeepGround had long lists of experimental records. If these were from DeepGround (which Argent was beginning to suspect was not the case), they had been in none of her files, and unknown enemies were some of the worst.

_Find something else,_ she thought. _Something stronger than a broadsword, capable of getting between the grating. A gun! Find a gun!_

There was no security office, but there might be some kind of help in the Nurses’ office, which was accessible. And on this floor. 

* * *

**/(** &^&$&^/&&^/// Remaining**

As Rosso left the laundry room, she took note of her surroundings. The previously dirty paint had gotten far worse. It had started to chip and flake with age and the whiter parts were a solid yellow. That was funny and Rosso ran her fingers along the paint on her way to the orderlies’ room. The pieces fell along the wall like grains of salt. How everything had managed to decay in such a short amount of time, Rosso could never know, but she suspected it had something to do with how everything felt more like a cocoon than a building. 

Distantly, Rosso considered checking the Orderly’s room. That was the _mission_ , after all. Laughter was bubbling up like bile in Rosso’s throat. The _mission_. The tiny blip on Rosso’s radar that was traveling further and further off her radar the further she walked down the hallway. Yes, that _mission_ that she needed to do for Weiss. With Azul’s help. And Argent’s.

Argent.  

Rosso _did_ start laughing at that. Savoring the rich sound of her echoing mirth, Rosso considered Argent in the rapidly decaying asylum. Argent, being fearful. Argent, huddled into some filthy corner, clutching her silly broadsword for dear life. Argent being… Human.

One thing Rosso had been told since childhood (if her dimly-remembered pre-adolescence could be considered childhood) was that Tsviets were not human. If she was going to train to become a Tsviet, then she was not going to stay a human for the rest of her life. She was going to undergo some grand change and that would take her humanity from her. The grand change had come and gone, but Rosso had been left to pick up the pieces for herself. The only place she had any freedom to make her own meaning was during the aftermath. At the time, Rosso decided that she had more in common with the feral Beast Soldiers than she did with other trainees.

In many ways, Rosso considered Tsviets to be more like monsters than people.

Argent was most definitely more of a person than a Tsviet. And this was a mission strictly for Tsviets.

Still giggling to herself, Rosso stalked through the dark hallways of the asylum, seeking the staircase to the second floor. Weiss’ life could wait. There was something else that needed to be taken care of before she could proceed.

* * *

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Remaining**

 "I am going to rend her," Nero hissed to himself. By his sides, his hands were already working wards his promise, curling into gnarled fists. At his shoulders, his wing hands seized onto the air, throttling Shelke in spirit. His hair, heavy with mats and soot, clung to the back of his neck in hot, wet air.

Ahead of him, something moved in the darkness. "Shelke!" There was no reply. Shelke knew to reply. More tentatively, Nero called out: "Weiss?" No reply. A chill began to seep over Nero's back as he moved forward. He raised his pistol at the staggering figure.

A bullet sped past him with a crack.

Ignoring over a decade of training, Nero turned to see the bullet hole in the wall. Nero whipped around to see his assailant lurk out of the shadows.

The woman wore the tattered ruins of a Researcher's uniform. Her legs were a sickly white that faded into her stained coat. Her downturned head wore a gas mask, the same face that pried Nero out of every pain-induced haze he had been in since he was five. In one outstretched hand, she held a revolver. She staggered forward with a sick moan like old machinery.

Nero dove across the hall, crumbling against one wall. He withdrew his other pistol. The Researcher fired again. Nero lunged across the hall again. As the Researcher swung her arm, Nero fired three shots. Two of them hit their marks, puncturing her forehead and shoulder. The Researcher's entire body shuddered as she collapsed to the ground. The body writhed on the tile, stirring the grim on the floor. Nero pushed himself off the ground and brought his foot down on the Researcher's neck. The writhing stopped with a firm snap. Nero finally relaxed as he toed the corpse onto its back for a better look.

It was lacking a name tag, but the mask was unmistakable. This was a DeepGround Researcher, or at least someone who had stolen the proper uniform to imitate one. Both wounds bled freely, red-black against the white coat. Nero noted that someone must have attacked her earlier; a darker red-brown stain bloomed on her lower stomach.

He knelt, intent on salvaging the Researcher's bullets. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the trigger but the gun did not fire again. Nero swung the chamber out; the bullets were the wrong caliber for his own guns, but even that was significant. With the exception of Tsviet weaponry, all other bullets were the same caliber. These bullets were neither Tsviet, nor DeepGround standard issue. They were too old.

Out-dated bullets on the body of a Researcher that had no business being in a civilian testing site. The entire scenario felt off.

Apprehension mounted as Nero checked through the Researcher's pockets. He fished a thin piece of plastic from one pocket; an identification card. His eyes flickered over the name. They tripped across the letters again, to make sure that he had read it correctly. Nero looked over the woman’s body, at the darker stains in her stomach.

Pocketing the card, Nero mustered every ounce of control he had. He marched away from the corpse as calmly as he could, cold sweat dripping down his back. 

* * *

**ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR**

Shelke had done her very best to ignore the gore dripping from the walls on her way down to the first floor. She had tried not to touch it or think very hard about where it had come from. On one hand, she had conditioned herself to accept horrors as a daily occurrence, as if they were as routine as medications. Shelke could accept Azul’s mutations, Rosso’s violence, and Nero’s gore; over the years, those things had become almost normal. But not even Nero could coat an entire hospital with human flesh _this_ quickly. Especially with the area still so barren of people. Nero was good at stirring up fear and disgust in her, but not good enough that he could materialize fresh human matter.

The door to the pool area swung open with a deafening creak. Shelke was cautious as she peered around the edge. The inside was just darkness. No sounds, no presence, just pure darkness. Shelke stepped forward into the room, holding a saber aloft to offer some sort of light. As far as she could see, there was nothing but empty space ahead of her, but she kept moving forward. Eventually she would hit the pool and then she would find whatever it was she was meant to find.

It was clear to Shelke that she was being baited. The placement of the key was too clean, just like the placement of the map. Weiss and Nero had to know that this was a trap too, but they were either ignoring it or leaping forward to worry about it later. Whatever had gotten to the hospital, it wanted her to find the pool key. Something wanted Shelke to come to the pool area and gaze out into the darkness. Shelke took step after careful step, waiting for something to attack.

Shelke’s toes were aligned with the pool’s edge. The slightest push would send her careening into the water. There was water, but it couldn’t be pool water. It was too dark. Even with the saber lighting the depths, Shelke could never hope to see the bottom.

In the dark, there was a high-pitched giggle.

Shelke pulled herself back from the edge. Assuming a fighting stance, she activated her other saber. Eyes orange with power, she yelled: “Who’s there?” Echoes rebounded through the tiled space and Shelke called back to herself a million times before it settles. Shelke hoped that she hadn’t deafened the other person in the room, and called out “Weiss?” From across the pool, the sound of fast footsteps, and a door opening and closing echoed back.

Weiss could be sarcastic and caustic, but he was hardly the type for counterproductive practical jokes. Especially not when he was working with limited time. Nero was more likely to simply shove Shelke into the pool of… Whatever that was if he wanted to play a prank. This was someone else on the premises, and they could have information.

Heedless of the “Don’t Run By the Pool” sign on the wall, Shelke broke into a sprint to catch up.

* * *

**ContactYourAdministratorContactYourAdministrator**

The basement was filled with slimy sounds, the sound of someone chewing with their mouth open or the sound of worms sliding across each other. Azul tread along, not caring how many of the pathetic, squirming things were crushed beneath his feet. That was life; being killed by more powerful things, especially if you lacked the strength to stand. Azul’s thoughts drifted as he tried doors. A room that was marked for storage was locked tightly, but the only other door led out to even more hallway, populated with even more dead and dying things.

As another creature squelched beneath his boot, Azul thought of his “teammates.” Weiss was the only one he had any measure of respect for, but that was less because of his nominal position as leader and more because Weiss had power. He had strength, and Azul respected strength more than authority. Everyone else, though…

There was a screeching cry at his feet, which he silenced with another step.

Nero was a coward, hiding behind his brother’s power. Rosso had stitched herself into her own violent coma and wouldn’t be waking up any time soon. Argent could have been powerful, but a careless mistake had cost her everything. And Shelke… Shelke was scarcely worthy of the title.

At the midpoint of the hallway, there was another storage room. When Azul tried the door, it opened easily. Stooping to get into the tiny room, he could only find one thing to be noticed. A piece of paper, the asylum’s letterhead, with a single phrase scrawled in heavy black, underlined three times: “YOU CAN’T KILL THEM”

Azul’s lips cricked up into a smirk. If the note was referring to the creatures outside, they were wasting time and paper. Azul _had_ killed them, nearly one hundred of them just on his way to the storage room. There was nothing stopping him from killing another hundred on his way to get Weiss’ cure, just to prove the note wrong.

Azul stepped back out into the hallway. The pale, bloated creatures were still on the ground, still bleeding. True to his own goal, he stepped on even more of them on his way to the door that would lead, hopefully, to something other than a hallway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *casually takes an entire year to write one chapter*

The only good thing was that she wasn’t running blindly. Track lights, not unlike those DeepGround, illuminated her path forward. Shelke couldn’t see her target, but she could hear it. Quick footsteps, dashing ahead in the straight path. The occasional giggle—high and musical—echoed through the hall. Shelke pursued the sounds. Even so, Shelke was being pursued herself. She couldn’t see it and had no idea what could _ever_ have found her, but she was being chased just as fervently as she was chasing. Occasionally _something,_ something with a hot mouth and sharp teeth, came close to her ankles.

The chase brought a memory back, unbidden. Shelke had been all of six years old. With wide eyes, Shelke watched the children of her village playing a game in the square. The rules were nonsense, but it involved a lot of running. Shelke had tried to join in but she was, by their estimation, too little. Shalua had come out of the house as Shelke watched them. She took her outside the village, and they played in the tall grass fields, smelling Dumb Apples, getting dirt on her feet—

She hadn’t considered Shalua in so long. The idea that Shalua would help her leave DeepGround was a distant, faded fantasy. It was something to only ever be indulged in after a particularly hard SND, and only in the darkness of her bunk. Shalua’s presence was never in her mind during the day, and _especially_ not during a mission.

At the same time, the idea was completely present, playing across her mind like a movie. In her head, Shalua looked like their mother when she came to rescue Shelke. She quickly, deftly put a bullet into the head of every DeepGround soldier and Tsviet that stood between her and her sister. She holstered the pistol and guided Shelke out of DeepGround and into the sunlight that she had been missing for years. In Shelke’s mind, the years she missed were made up in a matter of moments. She even regained the height and age of which DeepGround had robbed her.

“You’re useless,” a voice chimed in. It didn’t come from in front of her or behind her. Instead, the voice surrounded her, as if it was coming from the walls. “Wouldn’t it be better to just give in?”

Whether the voice was familiar or unfamiliar, male or female, Shelke couldn’t guess. It was Weiss. It was Shalua. It was that of a Banora village boy. It was that of a Researcher. Give up, give in, useless. Spineless. You can’t. You’re weak.

Bursting forward, still mere strides away from her mark, Shelke cried out into the darkness.

“I’m _not_!”

A door had loomed up out of nowhere, and Shelke hit it with full force. Despite never taking a single turn, the pursuit had led Shelke back to the pool. More puzzlingly, she had entered through the door she had entered through moments before. Shelke took cautious steps forward, matching her original actions. The static noises that filled her head were receding into stark silence. Whatever had been pursuing her had vanished. The room remained unchanged in her absence, save for one, small detail: A little girl was standing in front of the pool, facing Shelke, her back to the water. Between her hair and her clothes, the knowledge of who she was hit Shelke as hard as she had hit the door. “Shalua.”

The girl smiled and extended her hand. As if Shalua had also been stopped in her aging process, she didn’t look a day older than when Shelke had left.

“I’m not coming back,” Shelke told her. “I’m not like you anymore.”

The apparition blinked, then fell backwards into the water. Shelke had more survival instinct than to go to the edge of the pool. She listened for bubbles, hearing them pop on the water’s surface. The bubbles came slower and slower as time passed. As they stopped, Shelke turned around to leave.

In the next moment, she was drenched. Dripping wet and still clutching the locked door handle, Shelke turned to face what the water had done to the apparition of her sister.

* * *

It was absolutely amazing what medical professionals would just leave around. In his experience, Weiss had seen researchers leave anything from patient files to personal affects laying out on their desks while they worked on him. All of those things were free to whomever had fast enough reflexes to take them. The memory came of comparing contraband with Nero, accusing him of cheating. Technically, his brother had an unfair advantage; Nero didn’t even have to be in the same room to steal something. Still, they compared. Wallets to cell phones. Family photographs to unique pens. How long it took a given researcher to realize it was missing.

The patient files spread on the coffee table of the Doctors’ Lounge reminded Weiss of those days, comparing money to identification cards and deciding which was more valuable. The folders sat, casually waiting for him to open them up. Like everything else—everything from the map, to the ease with which he had turned on the electricity—it beckoned him. It tempted him.

For a few moments, Weiss touched everything but the files. He read every whiteboard, every bulletin board, every passive-aggressive note about food and its storage. He pulled books off the shelves, binders. Weiss refused to be led to this conclusion, refused to be _made_ to accept what was happening to him. He was wasting valuable time, but it was _his_ time and if he wanted to waste it, why couldn’t he?

The files sat, waiting for him to take the bait, just like everything that every doctor left behind. Snarling at the foreign sensation of helplessness, Weiss snatched the files and began to read them voraciously. In his haste and anger, he caught few details on his first skimming of the papers. Only when he saw the phrase “HJ Virus” and “treatment” in the same paragraph did Weiss sit down on one of the couches and begin a more invested reading.

He was reading the medical files of an old man, in his forties. The man was a transient, whatever that meant. The old man was dying, it looked like. The cause of his death was a virus, activated in him as a way to receive money. Mentally, Weiss went back to his old arguments with Nero about how much money was worth; more than life, apparently, but _they_ had never needed money. The virus was described as the “HJ Virus.”

He had found it. Weiss’ fingers began to shake and he had to flex them before continuing through the information. According to the last update, a nurse said that she had left all the pertinent information about his treatment in the same room they were keeping the old man in. As it was an experimental room, all the treatment information would be safe there.

Examining Room 3. Weiss’ own floor held Examination Rooms 1 and 2. Logically, the third examination room would be on the second floor. Cursing Shelke for her lack of success as he had for her lack of mettle, he rose from the couch quickly and made for the door.

No enemy engagement, he told himself. A sprint up to the examination room, then the data, then find your way back to DeepGround. Easy.

* * *

The search of the third floor was starting to wind down, all diversions aside. Three rooms to go, and Nero was ready to be done, just to ascertain Weiss’ safety. If there were ghosts from _his_ past running around, who knew what was chasing after his dear brother.

Nero’s hands were still shaking when he opened the door to the bathroom. In the back of his mind, he questioned whether data would be found in the bathroom. At the same time, he wondered whether the mission was truly about data any more. The Researcher’s identification card seemed to burn in his pocket, confirming that feeling. Harmaa Theotokos, a foreign, fantastic name. A name that should have held no meaning, and that held _all_ meaning, forming his heartbeat if he let it reverberate long enough.

The bathroom was disgusting, but every room was horrific. Two stall doors were open, showing toilets that Nero didn’t want to think too hard about. The last door on the right was closed. There were feet underneath the stall door. Nero drew a gun slowly. He approached the door carefully. With the tip of one finger, Nero pushed the door. It swung inwards with a loud creak. Nero choked back an anguished scream.

The scent of decay hit him before the sight did. Weiss, propped up on the closed toilet lid, slouching as if he were just resting on the throne of DeepGround. His eyes were milky in death, the mako brightness replaced with the faded blue-green of toilet cleaner. His tongue lolled out, bloated and horrible, with purge fluids seeping out of his mouth. Whole hanks of his hair was falling out of his head, scattering on the floor. His skin was slipping from his shoulders, and his torso looked tight with bloat and decomposing gases.

For moments, Nero just stared at the corpse in awe. To see Weiss— _his_ Weiss, all that there ever could be—brought down to something as small as death. In the back of his mind, Nero realized that not enough time had passed for Weiss to be so decomposed. This was not his brother, but something that looked too much like him. At the same time, the corpse was identical to his brother, down to the tiny scars in his skin.

In his mouth, something glimmered in the dim lights. The name of Nero’s mother came faster now, his heart beating rapidly against his chest. The glimmering item in this pseudo-Weiss’ mouth was obviously the goal. Just because the man was not actually his brother, it didn’t make approaching the corpse any easier. The corpse could have been his brother; the hair, the physique, even tiny scars along the length of his arms and torso were all the same as his brother.

His hands quaked as he reached across the space to the lolling tongue of Weiss’ dead doppelganger. Nero half-expected the corpse’s hand to shoot up, snatch his wrist, and open its mouth. The reek of decay on it grew stronger as Nero approached it.

Resolute, he reached forward and thrust his fingers into the corpse’s mouth. Fast as a close-combat cut, Nero withdrew the shining metal object. He opened his hands, revealing a key. The tag read: “Special Treatment Room.”

Nero sprinted to the room in question. He told himself it was to make up for the hesitancy he used in acquiring the key, but he knew better; confronting Weiss' mortality was harder than confronting even his own. In the room, there were four doors, and only one of them opened. Blood with no obvious source coated the room’s floor. One of the walls was scrawled with the phrase “MY TREASURE CHEST” in scratchy writing. That same wall had a hole carved in it and, in that hole, was a single, glimmering key.

* * *

As he continued through the basement, a thought came to Azul. His fights in Costa del Sol were good times. In DeepGround, his taste for violence had been honed into something productive and useful. His time in Costa del Sol was the closest he had ever come to genuine enjoyment. His taste for violence was encouraged in the streets, and celebrated in the fighting rings. Between the squelching worms beneath his boots, all Azul could hear in the silent howling of the basement was the roar of a crowd. Azul could still see the boy he had brutalized in his first ranked fight.

If anyone had bothered to ask him, Azul would have said that he was proud of what happened; they had to change the rules of what constituted the end of a fight just to suit him. Before, a fight was ended when one combatant stopped fighting. After Azul began his reign of bloody fights, a fight was only over when one combatant was unable to fight. This meant men staggering towards him on broken knees, taking swings with weak hands and breaking their bones against him. A fight was never over until a man was fought to exhaustion, and even then Azul was rarely satisfied with the outcome. It was intolerable, and the weakness of the fighting ring men had begun to wear on Azul’s patience.

In the darkness of the hospital basement, Azul was beginning to lose his patience. He could feel it slipping away from him. In general, Azul considered himself to be a patient man. In most cases, one had to wait for an enemy to drop their guard or show their weakness. Even if the opponent had no weaknesses, men would beat themselves bloody against him. Fighting Azul could be an exercise in futility, and during those fights patience was the crux of his strategy.

The worms were luring him somewhere. He could feel it. They clustered into clumps where he hadn't stepped yet. In his bloodlust, he could sense that they were clustering just far enough ahead to lead him somewhere. Like a chocobo led with gyshal greens, the worms used their weakness—his desire to abuse their weakness— to spur him on.

Eventually, the little squirming creatures led him to a door. Azul opened it without a pause. He could destroy any creature that this bleeding, half-dead world could throw at his feet. The door opened on a platform of grating and, beneath that grating was a concrete-floored boiler room. Azul assumed that, at some point, the room did have a boiler system. Now, only a discomforting humidity rose from the room itself and darkness shrouded the entire far side of the room from his vision.

Azul’s foot punched directly through the grating, and the floor seemed to rush up to meet him. Pain bloomed on his face, making a ring around his ankle where the grating caught and tore at his leg. Azul considered his pain tolerance to be peerless, as DeepGround had conditioned his pain response to nearly nothing, but the experience was still unexpected and unpleasant. As he rose, the door swung closed behind him. He smirked, even as the lock clicked. The monsters of the sanitarium thought that their trap had been sprung.

In the darkness on the far side of the room, something rumbled and roared. Azul turned away from the door, shook the grating from his leg, and prepared to face his opponent.

* * *

Argent dove into the office, slamming the door shut behind her. Trying to still her heart and calm her breathing, Argent thought of anything in the world but the sanitarium she was in, the _thing_ she had seen under the floor. Her mind took her back to Wutai; light blue skies, soft green grass, the light sounds of birds chirping and branches rustling above her. She tried to keep that sense as she opened her eyes. Her heart had stopped racing, but it was still beating erratically. The blood had stopped pounding behind her ears; she could hear the dead silence of the room, a welcome reprieve from the yowling creature in the cage.

_Find something that can help you_ , she thought.

The nurses’ office was not immune to the decay that the rest of the asylum had undergone. Mildew and mold had crawled across the paper, making the likelihood of finding any information on Weiss’ affliction unlikely. The lights sputtered with no provocation. It was unlikely that Weiss’ information was present here at all, which was a shame. If it had been, Argent could have tried to make it to the other side of the town on foot. In the quiet confines of the office, all Argent could do was search for a weapon that could penetrate the grating along the floor without cleaving it. A gun, a knife, anything smaller and more effective than what she had.

Argent began riffling through drawers. Every filing cabinet contained medical files that were irrelevant to her needs. A large wardrobe stood on the left wall, but it only contained a single set of moth-eaten scrubs. At the desk, Argent found a first aid kit, a telephone with no service, and a variety of non-lethal office supplies. Cursing under her breath, Argent threw the pencil holder aside in frustration. Stabbing through the grating with a ballpoint pen was not what she had in mind.

Behind the maze of filing cabinets, on the other side of the room, the door opened and closed.

Argent’s heart rate spiked rapidly as she began tugging at the one drawer left; a locked one, as fate would have it. The more she tugged at the drawer, Argent could feel the lock giving away. As she pulled on the drawer, murmuring frantic prayers to the gods that seemed to have abandoned her, a rhythmic clacking noise emanated from the other side of the room. Argent’s entire existence had faded down to breaking the lock in a last ditch attempt to find a weapon.

The drawer sprung open. Argent’s eyes fell on a bulky, dark grey pistol that had been jostled to the front of the drawer. She placed her hand on it, and spun around, ready to shoot at the creature that had come up behind her.

* * *

“Rosso…”

“Who did you expect?”

She turned the gun away from her face. As if Argent could expect to harm Rosso, a full-blooded Tsviet, with something as harmless as a handgun. Pathetic. Laughable. The fear in Argent’s eyes, the way her hands shook, her pallor at the thought of having to attack one of the monsters in the mezzanine… No, Argent was not a Tsviet. Argent never _was_ a Tsviet. And the mission was only for Tsviets.

“I thought one of those… Things… I thought one of them had come in here.”

“No. There’s no one here but us.”

The words hung in the air, dangerous and tempting. Argent set the gun down on the desk. “No, there isn’t. But you shouldn’t be on this floor. Your position was on the first floor.”

“I found the cure.”

Argent’s eye got wide. “Really? You found it?”

“I did. I need your help to verify it, though.”

That was a lie; Rosso found nothing but the truth about what she is and what Argent will never be. She should have been able to see past Rosso’s lie, see that it was too good to be true. More importantly, Argent should not be so hopeful; there was no hope for a Tsviet. Argent’s willingness to believe a lie if it got her out of the situation only made Rosso’s conviction that much stronger; Argent could not stay on the mission.

“I’ll help you,” Argent said quickly. The words came spilling out of her mouth, so pathetic and desperate. “Let’s go.”

A sliver of a grin slid across Rosso’s face as she led Argent out of the room. Argent tried to hurry past the monsters, but Rosso paid them no mind. The creatures are more kin to her than Argent could have ever been. “Do you see them too,” Argent whispered, once they were out of the mezzanine and heading towards a staircase.

“See what?”

“Those creatures… I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Another lie. Argent was less than a Tsviet, Rosso knew, and she was not worthy of any truth Rosso could tell. “Come on, the cure is downstairs.”

“Which room? Do you remember?”

Rosso was thinking fast as they descended. Her search of the first floor was minimal at best, but she had heard sounds in some places. Booming sounds, scraping sounds, the sounds of the monsters that Argent was so afraid of. She could take Argent to one of those places, and offer the woman’s blood as a gift to them. Rosso had decided, after all, that whatever was happening was more interesting, more of a home to her than DeepGround had ever been. She was going to stay here, sacrificing Argent and Azul and even Weiss as a way to keep her home.

“Do you remember,” Argent said again.

“Of course I remember. I’ll take you right to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued... Hopefully in less than a year...


End file.
